Re: [Chrysler300] Tires

I own 5 cars, three of which are driven little. perhaps a few hundred miles a.

Putting new tires on them every 6 years is a luxury I will not indulge!

Story 1-I loved the Michelin X tires on my 300H. We put most of the 300,000 miles we've put on that family car (from 62 to 84, then 84-88) ) car on Michelin tires, or later, the Sears tires made by Michelin with the same tread.

Our son sometimes drove our 300H when he was in HS in Illinois. One morning, the car wouldn't start for me. The engine was seized. I then noticed the carb linkage had been "rearranged" so both carbs were working in parallel, not progressively. The car then sat outside for several years with a tarp over it. The tires became flat. It sat in a muddy field through several winters with a tarp over it.

In 1984, we moved to California. I had pumped up the tires and had the car towed to a garage I trusted, and left it to have the engine rebuilt. Several years later, both kids were graduating from college and the car was ready. (By then, we had had a major brake job as well as a tranny and engine rebuild). We flew back to pick up the car and ferry it home. I drove the car to a local Michelin dealer in Illinois, intending to buy a new set of tires. The manager said the old ones were ok-despite sitting flat, outside thru several winters and being very old. So we left for California. One by one, I lost every one of the 4 tires.

Each time it happened, I was able to buy a used tire at the next town because I wanted to buy a complete set of 5 tires once I was home.

But here's my point: each tire failed by belt separation at high speed, and I was never in any danger of losing control of the heavily loaded car.

This ties in to the next story.

Story 2-My TR3 had Michelin tires which looked like new but were 12 years old. I had to drive up to Lake Tahoe from Morgan Hill (30 miles south of San Jose). I somehow, after a lot of finagling, got hold of a Tire Engineer for Michelin to get an understanding of age effects on the tires.

I soon noticed he instantly corrected me if I used the word "unsafe", and based on my experience, I would have to agree.

He finally said that if my old TR3 tires had been stored in a dark cool area (they were), and showed no sidewall cracking, and if I wanted to continue using them, it would not be Michelin;s recommendation that I do it, but if I did, I should have the tires dismounted and also inspect the INSIDE of the carcass for cracking.

I did that and went to Tahoe! I drove them for a few more years and finally replaced them with a new set of Vredstein tires.

Mike Moore 300H

On Mar 20, 2014, at 9:22 PM, Edward Mills Antique Tractors <millserat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

To amplify a bit - in my experience some current production new tires may be no good at 4 years, others (and here I have to echo the part about the tires of the 50's and 60's that we recapped and seemingly ran forever) may be good for well beyond 10 years.

If I remember correctly, the carcass of a nylon tire would last longer than a rayon tire - partly because rayon was more adversely affected by moisture and moisture could permeate thru the rubber particularly if there was any age checking. But we would recap a nylon tire with some minimal age checking with no problem. And remember recapping puts lots of heat into the carcass - and it was not uncommon to recap a truck tire several times.

But remember too the average tire life in miles was 15000-20,000 or less and even then the average car wore out a set of tires in 3 to 5 years. The extreme premium tires with a conservative driver may have lasted 25,000 miles but even the little old lady going to grocery and church would probably not get 10 years out of a set of tires.

And if you are talking heat buildup as it relates to tires coming apart on the highway, probably most of those - yes including many Firestones on Explorers as well as probably 50% of the cars on the road - are running tires under-inflated. And under-inflation is probably the worst cause of heat buildup in the carcass due to more flexing of the tire.

Also, some rubber compounds age better than others so brand "x" may last twice as long as brand "y" before it develops any signs of aging / chunking.

On 3/20/2014 9:42 PM, Edward Mills Antique Tractors wrote:

I think the point others have made is there may not be a single universal answer regardless of engineering / science - it depends on the rubber compounding, the storage, and other factors that are different for each of us.

On 3/20/2014 9:21 PM, Keith Boonstra wrote:

I'm sure someone knows some answers based in science to the tire longevity question. Part of the problem for us is that we have few trailer queens amongst us 300 owners, and a lot of us like to drive the snot out of them occasionally, or at least clip along with the interstate traffic without fear of a blowout at speed.

My '58 Impala isn't that much of a thrill over 50mph anyway ( Michael Burke would say a '58 Chev is no thrill at any speed), so I'm comfortable putting 200 miles a year going to local shows on its 31 year old Coker B.F. Goodrichs. . And my dad's '16 Buick truck seems to enjoy doing its full-bore speed of 19mph on its "NON SKID" tires that are likely to be at least 85 years old.

Bottom line though is that age of the tires does concern me for distance highway travel, and it would be helpful to have some way of knowing for sure when a tire is at risk of failure. As we all learned a number of years back with the Firestone tires on Explorers, if your rear tire blows out you don't have a choice. You have to roll your car.

Keith Boonstra

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On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 8:08 PM, Ray Jones <1970hurst@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Just a few observations from both my career as a Master Auto Tech and my own cars.

Old tires will hold up. Not to say they are safe at highway speeds, but all my tires that are older than say 20 years or so are just fine.
These were bought as top of the line tires as I would re shoe a car and then the newer ones would fail with little use.

Newer ones seem to have rubber compound problems, They ALL have exploded on the cars and just in storage. Just let loose and leave a gaping hole.

Even my 1990 Plymouth Voyager which had a new untouched spare exploded just hanging there. I had a flat and let it down and had shredded steel and nylon sticking out.

I have a dozen or so here on rims that exploded just sitting. Older ones are fine...

Ray in Springtime Mena. Yea!

On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 6:42 PM, Rich Barber <c300@xxxxxxx> wrote:

I’m a retired mechanical engineer, previously charged with maintaining and operating old equipment and plants. I have found out that; properly designed and maintained; mechanical equipment, tires and human bodies can run a long time.

Before that I repaired tires in a service station in the 50’s when most tires wore out before they aged out. The good and bad brands were pretty obvious. I ran 4-ply Nylon Firestone 500’s on my cars then and never had a problem, other than flat-spotting in the winter. I recall reports that Greyhound buses never had problems with their Michelin radials. And truckers get long wear from their tires. It was common practice to recap tires in those days as some carcasses had good remaining life after the tread was worn down.

With regard current tires, it seems unlikely any current tire co. employee will be able to deliver a straight answer due to liability issues. And, there certainly is no one good answer on tire life, so re-tiring (sorry) tires after seven years is probably not a bad practice.

Time, temperature, use, sunlight and ozone exposure, original compounding, original build quality, balance, off-duty storage methods and the number of potholes traversed all impact tire life. We have all heard of and experienced tires that seem to last forever and others that go early for no obvious reason. Hard compounds wear longer, soft compounds may be better on ice and slick roads. Racers know that and adjust tire compound to conditions.

I particularly appreciate feedback from fellow Chrysler 300 owners on performance of specific brands and models as well as service after the sale by the various vendors. I’m repeating the continued good service of a (probably) 24-year old set of tube-type Remington L78x15’s “Poly 4” (Canadian mfr., I believe) on our ’55 C-300. They are low mileage, stored inside, still knee-deep in rubber and don’t seem to flat spot or crack. Sidewalls and tread area re still impressionable/soft/pliable. Feel free to tell me “I told you so” at some point in the future. Disclaimer—this is my own experience and outlook—and is not recommended practice).

C300K’ly,
Rich Barber
Brentwood, CA

From: Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Edward Mills Antique Tractors
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 3:41 PM
To: Ronald Kurtz; Intl 300
Subject: Re: [Chrysler300] Tires

Good question - but I don't know that anyone knows a definitive answer - otherwise there would be a consensus that does not seem to exist. I WOULD BE INTERESTED IN OTHER OPINIONS, but here's my 2 cents worth.

Some small relatively uniformly distributed checking MAY be a normal sign of age and not to worry - thats what I was told by a dealer about my then 4 yr old Michelin Hydroedge tires about 10 years ago. I ran them another year and replaced them when the edges of the tread started showing little stress marks. As to tread, they would have easily gone another 40k miles but I felt tread compound had aged / hardened to the point I was uncomfortable.

Second experience - As to the then 4 yr old OE Continentals on my 2005 F250 that started throwing small chunks of rubber, the rubber tread compound was distinctly hard. (Maybe that is normal for truck tires, but the Goodyears, Michelins, and even Continentals on new vehicles seemed much "softer" to my fingernail.)

I think the hardness of the rubber was the real problem. Once upon a time I did race tires and we had a durometer - an instrument with a small moveable point that measures rubber hardness. I got used to doing a crude fingernail test on my street tires just as an exercise - if you can leave an imprint or dent on the edge of a tread block, however brief with a strong fingernail push on corner of tread blocks, I considered them "good" - the longer the dent stays visible, the softer the tread compound.

In the case of my Continentals - they were so hard that I could not dent the rubber. Add to that the fronts were chunking more severely and I assume (possibly incorrectly) that the squirm of steering maneuvering a trailer combined with the hard rubber contributed to the problem. The Continental truck tires on front of the trailer eventually did the same thing but that took about 8 years - ditto tread hardness.

One of the sure signs of a problem is a set of well defined and local cracks - typically in the sidewall at the bottom of a parked tire - the result of sitting in one place for a long time, aggravated by low air pressure and sunlight / heat. Personally I would not trust that tire at speed.

Also I would look for more defined individual cracks sometimes seen in the bottom of the tread grooves. Or I would look for any set of more distinct cracks compared to a background of relatively uniform small checking pattern. To me those seem to be obvious signs of age - BUT does that indicate they are unsafe??????

Any engineers currently working in the tire industry - please respond.

Ed

On 3/20/2014 12:12 PM, Ronald Kurtz wrote:

Hello, everyone:

I enjoyed the recent correspondence on tires for ours cars. After reading through this, a question came to mind since these tires could be on some of these cars for years (mine included). What are the signs one needs to look for the to determine if a tire has outlived its useful life and could fail? I was told some time ago small cracks in the sidewall was something to look for.

Best,

Ron Kurtz

E #292

--
Ray Jones. Y'all come on down an see us. Ya hear?